Chicago Intermodal Madness

[RRKen]

ZCIBP, ZEPCS, ZCIG1, an KLAG1 use BN, KC to Ft. Madison onto I was told, a new connection  on the Peoria line, then to the E/W main.  It used to be they rain all the way into Chicago on BN.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

RRKen

  Rubber tire is efficient in most cases for the carriers.  There is no yard switching involved.  Dray drivers are cheap, usually on a per trailer/container basis.   Locomotives and crews are not.   Line capacity is limited, and cost money to expand.   Using the street is cheap and easy, and most of all, not your responsibility.   . . .

The key now a days is to keep the cost per car down, not to create more by unloading and loading containers, then running a transfer.   That just steals money from the bottom line. long term or short term.   And terminals is where the most of the profit is sucked out of a rate. 

Several of the posts on Page 4 mentioned or alluded to rubber-tire interchange or transfer being faster/ cheaper/ better than steel-wheels, but the post quoted above explains it best, I think.

John Kneiling advocated intermodal terminal yards and adjoning industrial parks similar to some of those we're seeing now, but with the container unloading/ loading, sorting, and transfers being done by a giant industrial truck.  As he used to put it, something like ''The truck and its 1 driver can sort the boxes faster and cheaper than the switch engine and its crew''. 

The truck would be 'captive' to the private roads of the terminal and the industrial parks - it would not go out onto the general public road system.  Hence, the transfer truck would not have to conform to those road's weight limits - like many of the machines that can be seen inside a steel mill or other heavy industrial plants, for example.  The truck would perform those transfer and sort functions at less cost and with considerably more mobility and agility - and far less site space and paving requirements - than the portal cranes, 'PiggyPackers', and the like that are now commonly used. 

As envisioned by John, this giant container transfer truck would have a flat-bed about 80 ft. long, be likewise structurally capable enough to carry 4 fully loaded TEUs = ''Twenty-foot Equivalent Units'', and equipped with a boom-crane like device to unload and reload them at the shipper's dock.  Such units do exist - then and even more so now - to either 'slide', 'swing', or 'side' unload and load, although the container length is limited to about 40 ft. or so - maybe some can handle the 53 ft. boxes.  There are a few in the US - mainly on the West Coast - though they seem to be more popular in Britain and Scandanavia, and esp. in New Zealand and Australia.

It would be interesting to see an experimental trial of one of those at an IM terminal to see if it could expedite and economize the sorting and transfer functions enough to facilitate some more of the steel-wheel transfers, and also handle the local rubber-tire deliveries and dray hauls when that is the more appropriate choice for a particular load.

- Paul North. 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Chris30

Sticking to Chicago and the UP... I posted a link below for info on the new UP Joliet Intermodal Terminal (JIT).

http://www.uprr.com/customers/intermodal/featured/joliet.shtml

At the bottom of the page is the UP Chicago Terminal Plan which I have also posted below:

Ramp	Market	Destination
Joliet	International	Southern California, Northern California, Pacific Northwest, El Paso, Tucson
Global I	Domestic	Southern California
Global II	Domestic and Limited International	Northern California, Pacific Northwest, Denver, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City
Global III	Domestic and International	Southern California, Northern California, Pacific Northwest
Yard Center	Domestic and International	Dallas, Houston, Laredo, Mexico, San Antonio

[snip] 

Thanks much for that link and the ''Terminal Plan'', above.  Note the following with regard to the terminals and their destinations:

3 go to SoCal - Joliet, G1, and G3

3 go to NorCal - Joliet, G2, and G3

3 go to the PNW - Joliet, G2, and G3

Only 1 terminal goes to each of the other destinations.

This raises 2 questions for me:

1 - With those several possible origins to each of SoCal, NorCal, and PNW - is there and how are the containers aggregated into whole and full train-load quantities each day, without some rubber-tire transfers back and forth to equalize the loads, etc. ?

2 - And if a container for one of the destinations that's served by only 1 terminal arrives at any of the others by steel-wheel transfer/ interchange, along with a bunch of others that do belong there - how else does it get to the right terminal, without a rubber-tire transfer ?

Beyond that, I'm a little gratified by how well my ''guesstimate'' way above on the notional size of a single giant sorting yard matches up to Joliet's principal features, per the link above: 550 acres, 4 working tracks, 6 support tracks, 6 switching tracks, and 3,400 parking stalls, etc.  Rochelle's Global III is about twice as big, per http://www.uprr.com/customers/intermodal/featured/global/index.shtml - 1,200 acres, 4 loading tracks, 6 support tracks, 13 yards tracks, plus long switching leads, and about twice as many storage/ parking spaces - 7,200.  But someone will have to explain to me UP's subtle difference between ''support tracks'' and ''switching tracks'' or ''yard tracks'' . . .

Again, I'm not advocating such a thing - but what this tells me is that such a facility might have to be on the order of 20 times as large to accomodate all of the major railroads and their principal destinations - and that's just not going to happen, for economic and political reasons, among others.  Besides, I happen to think that a Soviet-type 'One Big Facility' is sub-optimum anyway - a diversified, spread-out, de-centralized terminal and interchange network such as this has evolved into is intentionally a little bit redundant and hence more stable and 'robust' against disruptions and overloads of various kinds, and allows each facility to specialize and optimize on a task, route, or traffic that it handles better than the others, etc.

- Paul North.     

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Since no one asked - and in case someone does - here's a little list and links that I've been compiling over the years, in no particular order.  Thsi list is not exhaustive - they may well be some others.  The links are all still active as of a few minutes ago, unless noted otherwise: 

Steadman's - from Britain, I believe - sliding transfer truck was pictured by Kneiling in the 1960's in Trains, in the NMRA's Bulletin, and also by David DeBoer in his book on Piggyback and Containers, but is now defunct as far as I can determine.  I understand that CP bought and used several of them when it first got into containerization, mainly in Eastern Canada, as I recall.  Perhaps someone with close ties and a good memory - Kootenay Central ? - can add to this.

ACTS - http://www.intermodallogistics.co.uk/acts/ 

California Container Lifters - www.cclifters.com/equipment.htm - now defunct ?

Containerlifters - UK dealers for Steelbro Sidelifters - http://www.containerlift.co.uk/sidelift-salesrental 

Kiwi Container Lifting Services - http://www.kiwicontainerlifting.com/ 

Swinglift USA, Texas -  http://www.swingliftusa.com/links.html

Sidelifter.com - California - http://www.sidelifter.com/index.html 

American Swinglift - seems to be defunct - http://www.americanswinglift.com/ 

Steelbro Sidelifters - http://www.steelbro.com/default.aspx 

Swing Thru International - http://www.swingthru.com/home.html#a 

Hammar Sidelifters - http://www.hammar.eu/ 

As someone once said to me, "You're a really sick puppy . . . " 

- Paul North. 

P.S. - Most of these appear to be capable of stacking containers 2-high, at least from ground-level - I'm not sure if they can work the top container to or from a double-stack well car, though. - PDN. 

 

 

[oltmannd]

I've not much to add here except to say that when I was in the Intermodal group at Conrail in the mid-90's, they were actively pursuing every possible way to increase steel wheel interchange. These included block swapping, terminal to terminal transfers, and run-thru trains to the other RRs. All of these things are still being done today by NS and CSX.

As others have explained again and again, the rubber tire interchanges aren't inherently good or bad, they are just the best way for that traffic, given all the constraints of the system.

[BT CPSO 266]

Unless I missed it? Could the railroads arrange the well cars at the originating terminal so that containers bound for other yards can just be uncoupled from the consist at the destination terminal and then coupled to a road switcher (maybe a SW1500) and take it to the appropriate terminal? Just asking. Most people seem to understand cost better than me here; I am just wondering what keeps this from happening cost wise?

I do understand the current situation; trucks are the most economical way to do this right now. 

However, that theory revolves around the fact that capacity issues would need to be addressed first. It would seem if road traffic gets bad enough, federal money maybe thrown at the Chicago Hub to expand capacity on the RRs and separate grade crossings.

[carnej1]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Since no one asked - and in case someone does - here's a little list and links that I've been compiling over the years, in no particular order.  Thsi list is not exhaustive - they may well be some others.  The links are all still active as of a few minutes ago, unless noted otherwise: 

Steadman's - from Britain, I believe - sliding transfer truck was pictured by Kneiling in the 1960's in Trains, in the NMRA's Bulletin, and also by David DeBoer in his book on Piggyback and Containers, but is now defunct as far as I can determine.  I understand that CP bought and used several of them when it first got into containerization, mainly in Eastern Canada, as I recall.  Perhaps someone with close ties and a good memory - Kootenay Central ? - can add to this.

ACTS - http://www.intermodallogistics.co.uk/acts/ 

California Container Lifters - www.cclifters.com/equipment.htm - now defunct ?

Containerlifters - UK dealers for Steelbro Sidelifters - http://www.containerlift.co.uk/sidelift-salesrental 

Kiwi Container Lifting Services - http://www.kiwicontainerlifting.com/ 

Swinglift USA, Texas -  http://www.swingliftusa.com/links.html

Sidelifter.com - California - http://www.sidelifter.com/index.html 

American Swinglift - seems to be defunct - http://www.americanswinglift.com/ 

Steelbro Sidelifters - http://www.steelbro.com/default.aspx 

Swing Thru International - http://www.swingthru.com/home.html#a 

Hammar Sidelifters - http://www.hammar.eu/ 

As someone once said to me, "You're a really sick puppy . . . " 

- Paul North. 

P.S. - Most of these appear to be capable of stacking containers 2-high, at least from ground-level - I'm not sure if they can work the top container to or from a double-stack well car, though. - PDN. 

 

 

Back in the 1990's a patent was filed for an updated version of Kneiling's system with the train itself equipped with side loading equipment:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=InYfAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

We could analyze why this was never built but it shows someone thought about the problem..

[wslc8]

 Paul - Your comment on the "Mother of all Terminals", isn't that far fetched. Mi-Jack came up with a plan called the "Thruport Concept". It was designed specifically for Chicago and to solve the truck transfers across town from one railroads terminal to another. The concept uses wide-span gantry cranes....lets say up to 15 tracks.....and allows the interchanging of containers (up to 2 at a time) from one railroad to another in 1 step. Of course there is a lot more to this concept, and I am sure their is a reason why railroads have not implemented it. However, it is still a very interesting concept and one we might see one day.

BNSF's new intermodal yard in Memphis will actually operate  very close to the Thruport Concept. CSX's new terminal in North Baltimore will also be similar.

 For those of you interested in learning more about it, you can check out this link:

Thruport Concept

 Mike A.

[BaltACD]

BT CPSO 266

Unless I missed it? Could the railroads arrange the well cars at the originating terminal so that containers bound for other yards can just be uncoupled from the consist at the destination terminal and then coupled to a road switcher (maybe a SW1500) and take it to the appropriate terminal? Just asking. Most people seem to understand cost better than me here; I am just wondering what keeps this from happening cost wise?

 

What I believe you are overlooking is volume and equipment utilization.  With a 5 platform stack car full utilization requires loading with 10 forty foot or larger containers, or potentially 20 twenty foot containers.  Unless you are dealing with forwarder type outfits (UPS & Pacer come to mind), there are relatively few outfits (discounting port operations) that either ship high volumes of containers to similar destinations or have the ability to receive high volumes of containers.  The interchanging of rail cars between the carriers in Chicago is not a trivial undertaking.  The generation of a interchange cut requires the same kind of switching as any other train....both in building the cut at the origin carrier to disassembling the cut at the destination carrier.  I might also add, that most yard facilities are constrained by the physical characteristics from building as many individual blocks of car as someone might conceive of.

In another thread in this forum there is a discussion about 'loose car' railroading.  Truthfully, intermodal operations is what has replaced 'loose car' railroading as many of the shippers and receivers of intermodal traffic generate their traffic at one and two container a day rates, and like most organizations both receive and ship to multiple, geographically dispersed localities.

Were we to have nationwide rail carriers, then suitable loading patterns would be developed at origin to maximize the long haul benefits of the rail car and train. 

If one of the carriers is able to develop a business opportunity that would involve trainload volumes from a single origin area to a single destination area...that operation would be all rail all the way without the need to unload/load at Chicago, or any other gateway.

[narig01]

 my worth dept. I have on any number of occasions advocated for a modified mk 4 roadrailer (truck chassis with 1 single axle rail wheel).   Chicago might be a good application here.  

     The biggest advantage in a congested terminal is that you could store loads on the ramp(not on rails) til you had room to assemble a train. Also it would be easier to do small trains(10-40 boxes) 

     Kind of in a hurry here, I'll try to get back later. 

  To Paul North Jr. Try to remember what I've said in past about roadrailers.

Thx IGN

[Kevin C. Smith]

edblysard

Or, you could do what most ports do, simply drop the box on a boogie chassis...

Sorry, everyone, but it's been a couple of days since I checked the forum and I just finished taking in this thread in one sitting. Lots of good information but between all that and the full moon, my brain is reeling and the typo gave me a laugh (no offense intended). Off now to sleep, perchance to dream of tricked out box chassis-low riders, with tinted tractor windows, loud music and fuzzy dice...

G'night all.

[edblysard]

Perhaps to have dreams of Boogie Fever?

Break out the mirror ball and platform shoes....

[DANCBQ]

Sawtooth500

Paul_D_North_Jr

"Chicago Worst in Truck Congestion"

By Jenel Nels

NBCChicago.com

updated 1 hour, 45 minutes ago

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37374561

Activated the link for you, too.

Says Chi-town has 3 of the top 10 spots, as follows -

#9: The Dan [Ryan ?] Expressway at the Bishop Ford Freeway.

#2: The junction connecting the Kennedy and Edens Expressways. Travel times average 23 mph during rush periods and only 39 mph during rush periods. [Huh ?]

#1: The circle interchange. (The junction between the Eisenhower Expressway and the Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways).

But the article doesn't say anything at all about containers being a factor in this.  [It also has some editing issues, which I similarly noted in brackets above.]  And which - if any - of these interchanges are heavily used by trucks transferring containers between railroad intermodal terminals ?  If not much, then even if all containers were interchanged on 'steel wheels', the truck traffic congestion would remain . . .

- Paul North. 

 

To answer your question, those are ALL used by intermodal transfers, especially the circle interchange and the Dan Ryan expressway. Chicago is jam packed with rail yards. There are so many yards virtually every road in Chicago could be used by truck transfers...

dear sir i have to disagree with you for two reasons one truck transfer has been going on for at least 35 years that i know of firsthand. second af as the interchanges go I would suspect most of the trucks you re complaining about are going to final destination not transfer. for example a trailer from global one (wood st terminal years ago ) to ns ashland ave 41 stwouldn t ever go on any expressway in chicago it would just go up western ave to 35 th stthsen east to ashland and than south to 41 stor roughly about4.5  miles all on city streets taking up about 20-30 mins time verses a rail transfer that requires going thru 2 interlockings and taking a lot more time. ditto for transfers from g1 to landers straight shot up western to 79 th  st or to csx 59th st, Additionally whats the kennedy edens interchange got to do with intermodal there aren t any yards that are readily accessible from either highway. And lastly the same go for the circle as almost all the major intermodal yards are more easily accessed using either city  streets the whole way or by leaving the expreesways before one would enter the circle,  just my 2 cents as a lifelong chicagoan and railfan,

[edbenton]

Also if you READ the INTERSTATE highway bill the Interstates were designed TO PROVIDE FOR THE NATIONS DEFENSE AND INTERSTATE COMMERCE FIRST.  THE FACT THE NATIONS AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC USE THEM WAS A SIDE BENEFIT.  There is a provision in there IIRC that in WARTIME that ALL AUTOMOBILES WOULD BE BANNED FROM ALL INTERSTATES LEAVING THEM FOR THE EXCULSIVE USE OF OTR TRUCKS AND ALL MILITARY TRAFFIC ONLY.  THE LAST YEAR I DROVE OTR I PAID WELL OVER 50K IN HIGHWAY USEAGE TAXES AND FUEL TAXES COMBINED.  Yet we are treated like Steerage class passengers on the Titantic as it was sinking.  Nevermind that if you have it in your house WE BRING IT.  Why is the Circle Interchange so SCREWED UP.  You have the I-55 I-290 I-90/94 all within one mile that come together and with all the IDIOTS that drive cars in and around Chicago the TAXIS are the worst that suicide dive a truck to not loose 10 seconds of time that is what causes the backup.  Also the I-57-94 down at the south end.  You have 6 lanes of traffic being forced into 3 and then you are forcing the trucks to cross into the 2 rights only because the YUPPIES will not be slowed down by a truck.  Yet when I drove up there 95% of all the accidents that had an OTR truck in them were when a car rear ended a SEMI or cliped his drivers side fender trying to make his exit. Since the car could not be INCONVIANCED TO STAY BEHIND THE TRUCK.

[narig01]

Sawtooth500

As a Chicagoan, this is why I would personally prefer everything be steel wheel: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37374561. Unless you live in New York or LA, you really don't know how bad the problem is...

 

Or you drive a truck thru the Chicago area on a regular basis.

Rgds IGN

[narig01]

Paul_D_North_Jr

It would be interesting to see an experimental trial of one of those at an IM terminal to see if it could expedite and economize the sorting and transfer functions enough to facilitate some more of the steel-wheel transfers, and also handle the local rubber-tire deliveries and dray hauls when that is the more appropriate choice for a particular load.

 

To Paul D North. As you know I've advocated road railers elsewhere. And specifically in this case I think they would be a good vehicle for interchange.

Rgds IGN

[narig01]

 I was poking thru some other areas and this popped up

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-26/news/ct-met-traffic-chokepoints-0527-20100526_1_trucking-federal-highway-administration-mph

Chicago Tribune Article describing the top truck bottlenecks in the country.

Rgds IGN